Part of becoming registered as a Psychologist
in Ontario is a requirement to pass a major factual exam, demonstrating
that your knowledge within a variety of relevant areas is adequate.
Hence I’ve spent this past summer reviewing content in such diverse
topics as infant development, psychopharmacology, research design, and
clinical techniques. Upon reviewing one area – cognitive psychology
– I was reminded of a thought which struck me a decade-ish ago when
I first studied how the human mind thinks: our brains are rather lazy
things! Like indolent teens watching the clock at their summer jobs,
our brains don’t care to invest more energy than is absolutely necessary,
and so cut corners wherever possible.
One
such shortcut is called the availability heuristic (or, availability
‘rule-of-thumb’). When we problem-solve, rather than scour the deepest
recesses of our memories to best aid us in this task, our brains instead
tell us that whatever thing has come readily to mind is likely the answer
to our question. This ‘slacking’ may allow the brain to quit work a
little early, but allowing such sloppy performance can sometimes rob
us of much better and more healthy responses. Particularly when you
have a difference. If you are anything like me, you’ve dwelled on your
difference for many years: first seeking out a name for it, and then
desperately learning more about it. Given, then, that my own difference
comes readily to mind, my brain saw a golden opportunity to set itself
up a tidy little program. “ALL of life’s woes stem from Tourette Syndrome”,
this program proclaimed; “have a problem? It probably wouldn’t have
happened to you if you didn’t have TS – blame IT!” Convenient? Without
a doubt. Accurate? Often not. The truth is that life can be very unfair
and a person can be very unhappy and THESE PROBLEMS CAN BE COMPLETELY
REMOVED FROM ANY DISORDER YOU HAVE. Many problems arise independent
of whether or not you have a difference at all – heck, the problem might
even lie in the OTHER guy’s issue or difference. Always assuming that
the problem and your difference are somehow related can sometimes unnecessarily
cloud the picture. And if I always take the easy route my brain offers
me without forcing more scrutiny I may miss much better rationales for,
interpretations of, and solutions to that relationship loss, those friends
that don’t call anymore, or that job that passed me by.
Another
way our brains try to avoid work is called the representative heuristic:
in this instance, our brains tell us that ‘if it looks like a duck and
quacks like a duck, let’s just call it a duck, leave it at that, and
then call it a day’. Again, this little convenience can get us into
trouble. For example, I’ve often communicated how important it is to
discriminate between people who have reacted to your difference because
they misunderstand versus those who have malicious intent. Even though
the first group is FAR more common than the second group (and an eager-beaver
brain would keep this in mind), time and again my brain will mistake
a member of the first group for the 2nd; based on surface appearances
alone it will announce, “That’s a duck!” when it ain’t necessarily so.
In essence, this is the root cause of stereotyping. This is also what
happened at last year’s Gay Pride parade in Toronto when, congregated
together with some friends at a pub after the festivities, I ridiculed
a gentleman who had asked me to please stop making my noises. One of
the snarky comments I recall making was, “I’ve been doing it for 29
years so it’s doubtful I’ll stop, but I’ll do my best”. Then the waitress
brought me another beer, compliments of that very individual. As it
arrived he also stood and apologized. Now it was my turn to be ashamed.
Rather than invest the time and energy into fairly judging the situation
my brain made a hasty (and incorrect) decision. Another time, when dining
in a restaurant, a woman who had just been seated across from us mused
out loud, “Who is making that sound?” Just as she figured out what was
happening, but before she could communicate her regret for unintentionally
putting me on the spot, I swung on her with a pointed ‘have you got
something you’d like to say?’ Since those two occasions I now try to
monitor my lazy brain, and the situations in which it finds itself,
a little more carefully…
Until
next time, my friends!
B. Duncan McKinlay, Ph.D., C.Psych.
(supervised practice)
